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How do you install Google’s Chromium browser on (K)Ubuntu Linux?

ByGarf

Unfortunately the new Google Chromium open source browser is not included in the Ubuntu software repositories yet. Therefore installing it is a little more complex than other Ubuntu applications. But it still takes less than five minutes. Here’s how…

1. You need to tell your system to connect to the appropriate software repository. That is, you need to add a line to your /etc/apt/sources.list file similar to this:-

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu {your version of Ubuntu} main

Where {your version of Ubuntu} could be hardy, intrepid, jaunty or karmic. There are several ways this can be achieved. Probably the simplest and most meaningful way for most Ubuntu users is to edit the file manually by using the command:-

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Alternatively Kubuntu users may use:-

sudo kate /etc/apt/sources.list

If you wish, you can also add a comment line to the file to remind yourself later about what you have done. My additional lines looked like:-

# Chromium-browser repo added by Garf 2009-06-30.
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu hardy main

2. Then you need to install PPA’s public key. Do this by typing the following command into your terminal:-

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 4E5E17B5

3. Then you need to tell your system about your repository changes by running the following command in your terminal:-

sudo apt-get update

4. Finally you can run the installation command from your terminal:-

sudo apt-get install chromium-browser

5. That’s it! If the installer does not create a menu item for your new browser then you can always launch it from the comand line, thus:-

chromium-browser

Of course, at time of writing, Chromium browser is in “alpha” stage. This means it is still quite buggy and has a lot of things that don’t work properly. I have played with it quite a bit and it gets better all the time. But it is test software that you use very much at your own risk.

Also, because of the way (K)ubuntu Lnux manages updates, you are likely to be offered several new updates a week. These updates can result in 10MiB downloads.